Defending the hot hand: Do changes in the decision-making behavior of defenders based on the hot-hand belief render the hot-hand phenomenon in basketball unobservable?

Previous research hypothesized that defenders may increase their pressure based on the hot-hand belief, according to which a player is more likely to hit his next shot following several successful attempts than after several consecutive misses. Since statistical evidence in favor of the hot-hand effect has been limited when considering in-game field goal shooting, this lack of evidence may have resulted from changes in shot difficulty. This presentation examines aims to answer to principal research questions: (1) Do players and coaches increase the defensive pressure on a hot player and how does a player’s decision-making behavior change as a result of such strategic adjustments? (2) Can we find evidence in favor of the hot hand after controlling for shot difficulty? To answer the first question, we present an experimental study in which professional basketball coaches were asked to decide whether they would increase the defensive pressure based on a player’s streakiness (Csapo, Avugos, Raab, & Bar-Eli, in press). Furthermore, players were asked whether they would shoot or pass the ball as a function of defensive pressure and streakiness. With respect to the second research question, we discuss the findings of a study, which used novel performance metrics and directly measured the defensive pressure applied to shot attempts (Csapo & Raab, 2014). We analyzed both how defensive pressure changed as a function of streakiness and how shooting percentages evolved during hot versus cold streaks after controlling for shot difficulty. Overall, the studies provided strong evidence that defenders increase their pressure based on the hot-hand belief, leading to changes in shot difficulty. However, we could not find evidence for the hot-hand effect as the shooting accuracy of hot players was lower when controlling for shot difficulty, e.g., they hit open and contested shots with a lower accuracy than following cold streaks, respectively.